What Exactly is Barbecue?

Barbecue is one of those crazy words that means different things to different folk. On one hand, fast food restaurants claim anything with BBQ sauce smeared on it is barbecue. On the other hand, hard-core backyard barbecuers (who tend to be a real particular bunch) think only a particular cut of meat with a particular sauce cooked in a particular way over a particular wood counts as barbecue. Smoking and grilling just confuse things more, are they different from barbecuing, or different types of barbeque?

Well, this article will try to clear all this up for you, describing just what exactly barbeque means. There's a bit of an argument over whether "barbecue" is a noun (a type of food) or a verb (a method of cooking). Personally, I'd argue that it is both, a cooking style AND a type of food (that, contrary to popular belief, does not necessarily include BBQ sauce). True barbeque cooking requires four things. First a barbecue almost always cooks meat (with some exception, like corn on the cob or potatoes). Second, it is generally cooked outdoors (but we'll make an exception for restaurants that build special indoor cookers). Third, meat cooked over a live fire, not in an oven or on a stove. Fourth, real, true barbecue is cooked slowly with indirect heat at a low temperature.

It's for this reason that grilling is not barbeque (and all you suburbanite grillers are free to slap me with your spatulas for saying that). In grilling, meat is cooked quickly (in minutes) over direct heat at a high temperature (5000F or over). In barbecue, meat is cooked slowly (in hours) in indirect heat at a low temperature (between 2000F and 2500F). Smoking counts as BBQ, it meets all the requirements listed above but is a specialized type that includes aromatic smoke to flavor the meat. Now, you may ask (and rightly so) how the end result of barbecue meat is different from, say, oven-roasted or pan-seared meat. The answer is that barbeque meat is extremely tender and juicy.

The low-temperature, indirect heat helps prevent the meat from drying out, keeping it juicy. The long, slow cooking time breaks down the collagen in the meat, making even the tougher cuts of meat nice and tender for easy eating. What most folks don't realize (including some hard-core barbecuers themselves) is that the marinade, ribs, bastes, and sauces of barbecue cooking are all designed toward this ultimate goal of tender and juicy meat. Marinades almost always include an acidic base ingredient, such as vinegar, lemon juice (or some other citric acid), wine, or even beer. During the long, multi-hour soak, these acids tenderize the meat by breaking down the tissue, making it more tender and allowing the meat to absorb more moisture for a juicer end product when barbecue. The rib almost always contains a healthy dose of salt, which draws the meat juices to the surface and prevents it from drying out. The basting BBQ sauces, usually applied in the later stages of cooking, frequently contain some form of sugar (brown sugar, molasses, or honey), which caramelizes around the meat from the heat and seals in the juices (olive and other oils produces the same effect).

Even the barbecue sauces (which in the United States are either tomato or vinegar based) both contain acids that continue to break down the meat, keeping it tender and moist even while being eaten. A final distinctive element of barbecue meat is a smoky flavor. Cooking over a live fire allows the meat to absorb the smoke from burning wood. Even when cooking over charcoal briquettes or gas instead of wood, the meat still gains at least a hint of that indefinable charbroil taste. Smoking, of course, is a specialized form of barbecue that purposefully tries to emphasize the smoky flavor. So that's what barbeque is, meat cooked low and slow until it's tender and juicy. Different cultures in different countries have their own homegrown barbeque tastes and traditions, but we'll describe those in the next article.